On Citizenship, Race, and Responsibility

Menu

Xenophobia?

An uneasy mixture of a corporate ego and political corruption have finally caught up to Meg Whitman. In the past week, it has come out that the California gubernatorial candidate employed an illegal immigrant as her housekeeper for several years. Whitman and her husband, Griff Harsh, claim that they were completely oblivious of any sort of notion that their housekeeper, Nicky Diaz, was an illegal immigrant. They claim that the only found out about her immigration status in 2009, and promptly fired her.

Whitman and Harsh, however, received a letter from the Social Security Administration in 2003, which indicated that aspects of their housekeeper’s paperwork did not add up. The couple ignored the letter, for the most part, aside from running it past Diaz. Harsh wrote “Nicky, please check this” at the bottom of the letter and gave it to Diaz. For the next six years, the steadily employed her (at very low wages. Meg Whitman is a billionaire).

Am I against illegal immigration? Am I against employing illegal immigrants? Do I think that there are major flaws in the United States immigration system? Do I think that what Meg Whitman did was right? None of these questions are relevant.

Meg Whitman is running on a platform that is firmly upheld by her plan to make illegal immigration tougher and to send those immigrants back to their home countries. One of her principal proposals is the “Economic Fence,” which would supposedly protect against the employment of illegal immigrants. The following is from the website:

“Meg believes that the federal government and California need to work together to establish a system that allows employers to better verify the immigration status of their workers. The “Economic Fence,” an enhanced e-verification system, will help keep employers honest and will be a major deterrent to illegal immigration.”

Her website also says that she wants to “deploy the resources of the National Guard” to keep people like Nicky out of California. She wants to “prohibit driver’s licenses” for people like Nicky (how did Nicky get to Whitman’s house?) She wants to“conduct workplace inspections of suspected business.” Really!